The reason why to fall down denotes humiliation of heart, is, that falling down upon the knees and the face is a gesture corresponding to that inmost humiliation, which is called humiliation of heart. For there are gestures which naturally correspond to every affection, and man glides into them spontaneously, when he comes into the correspondent affections. This however is to be understood only of those who have not learned to feign affections that are foreign to them. For those who have learned to do this adopt certain modes of expression of themselves, by means of which they represent the affections of the heart, although they do not come from the heart. These also are able to fall down before God, but then it is mere pretence. These things are mentioned in order that it may be known that to fall down before God, denotes from inmost affection, which is called humiliation of heart; this precedes that adoration which is of the lips.

[2] Continuation [concerning the Life of Plants]. - 1. Nothing in nature exists except from the Spiritual and by means of it.

The reason of this is that nothing can exist except from something else, and so at last from Him, who is and who exists in Himself; and lie is God. God therefore is also called Esse and Existere; Jah from esse, and Jehovah from esse and existere, in Himself. The reason that nothing in nature exists but from the Spiritual is, that nothing can exist unless it has a soul, everything that is essence being called soul. For that which has not in itself an essence, does not exist-it is a nonentity, because there is no esse from which it can derive existence. Such is the case with nature, its essence, from which it exists, being the Spiritual, because this possesses in itself the Divine Esse, and also the Divine Force - active, creative, and formative - as will be evident from what follows. This essence may also be called soul, because everything that is spiritual lives; and when that which is living acts upon that which is non-living - upon that, for instance, which is natural - it causes it either, as it were, to live as if from itself, or to derive from it something of the appearance of life; the former is the case with animals, the latter with plants.

[3] The reason that nothing in nature exists but from the Spiritual is, that no effect is produced without a cause. Whatever exists in the form of an effect proceeds from a cause, that which does not proceed from a cause being separated. Such is the case with nature; all the individual and particular objects belonging to it are effects from a cause, which is prior, interior, and superior to it, and which proceeds immediately from God. For since there exists a spiritual world, which is prior, interior, and superior, to the natural world, therefore all that belongs to the former is cause, and all that belongs to the latter is effect. The existence indeed of one thing from another is also progressive in the natural world, but this is by means of causes proceeding from the spiritual world; for where the cause of an effect is, there also is to be found the cause of an efficient effect. For every effect becomes an efficient cause in successive order, even to the ultimate, where the effective force stops. But this is continually accomplished from the Spiritual in which alone this force exists; this therefore is the reason why nothing in nature exists except from the Spiritual, and by means of it.

[4] There are in nature two mediate causes, through which every effect, whether of production or formation, takes place. These mediate causes are light and heat; the former modifying substances, the latter stimulating them to action, the power in each case proceeding from the presence of the sun in them. The presence of the sun which is seen as light, produces an activity of all the forces or substances of every individual thing, according to the form in which it exists from creation-this is modification. The presence of the sun again, which is perceptible as heat, expands every individual thing, producing an active and efficient force, according to the form, by calling forth into action the conatus or effort which it possesses from creation. This conatus, which by means of heat becomes a force, active even in the minutest forms of nature, is from the Spiritual acting within them and upon them.